Innovative Minds and the Islamic Human Rights Commission are calling on campaigners to contact Arsenal Football Club and protest their decision to signed a sponsorship deal to promote Israel as a tourist destination.

Palestinian children play football in fear of israeli snipers
who may at any time decide to "have some fun"
and target them
from from inside the fortified Israeli settlement built illegally on their land.

"The Israeli army claimed that the soldiers shot dead 11 year old Khalil in self-defense. However, a report issued by the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, denies the Israeli army’s claims and accuses it of lying. Its investigation confirms that the 11 year old victim was playing football with his friends when he was fatally shot. The report further proves that he did not pose any threat to the Israeli soldiers’ lives, who were positioned in a watchtower a kilometer away..." [5]

BACKGROUND:

Arsenal Football Club has just signed (26th February) a sponsorship deal to promote Israel as a tourist destination.

The £350,000 agreement makes Israel Arsenal's "official and exclusive travel destination." Israel will be featured on digital perimeter boards and 450 high-definition LCD screens at the stadium on game days.[1] The tourism ministry will also have access to the club's official website Arsenal.com, database and magazine to promote Israel as a holiday destination [2]

The televised ads will reach audiences of up to 700 million in an estimated 198 countries. The Israeli Tourism Ministry will also receive intellectual property rights, the use of the team logo and the right to use photos of the team and its players in ads. For an additional fee, Arsenal players will also appear in the ads.[3]

The deal doesn't stop with promoting Israel but actually grants Israel a physical presence in the stadium. The Israeli Tourism Ministry can use the stadium's banquet hall twice a year and can organize an exhibition at the end of the playing season.[3] The stadium will also feature permanent sales tables for t-shirts.[4]

The two-year sponsorship deal begins at the start of next football season in six months' time.

Tourism Minister Avraham Hirschson and
Arsenal's Keith Edelmanat a press conference
at the David Intercontinental hotel in Tel Aviv

With the world boycotting Israel as a tourist destination Israeli tourism minister Abraham Hirchson admitted employing Ernst & Young financial advisers to help develop a new strategy to entice people to Israel. He estimated that the sponsorship deal will bring in an additional 2 million tourist to Israel annually.[3]

Arsenal's managing director, Keith Edelman at a press conference in Israel explained how Arsenal could help sell apartheid Israel: "We are the largest club in London and have 30 million fans around the world. We are in the forefront of the anti-racism campaign in England and have an excellent brand that can promote any product... we will assist Israel become a more popular destination". He also promised "when we find the time, club representatives and players will come to visit Israel,".[3]

A grieving father Hussein Maqanen holds a poster of his two sons killed by the Israelis.
Ibrahim was aged 14, and Adel was aged 17. Adel was killed whilst playing football.
Israeli snipers targeted him from inside a military bunker on a hill overlooking
the patch of dirt which was his football field near Khan Younis.[5]

The Jerusalem Post has hinted that Arsenal's chief shareholder, Danny Fiszman, vice chairman David Dein and managing director Edelman have used their Jewish backgrounds to steer the club towards Israeli causes including setting up football academies in Israel [3] at a time when when Palestinian children are routinely targeted by israeli snipers whilst they play football.[5]

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz confirmed this, quoting Uzi Gafni, a director of the Israeli Tourism ministry on the Arsenal deal as saying "I knew I needed someone with ties to Judaism, Edelman may not go to synagogue every Friday, but there are warm Jews at Arsenal who wanted to give something to Israel.".[6]

16 year old Jaser recovering after being shot
with an Israeli M-16 machine gun whilst playing football.
The bullet left an 8 cm hole in Jaser's liver.[5]

[5] A few example of Palestinian children being shot dead by the Israeli army whilst playing football:

"Among the latest victims of apparently indiscriminate shooting were three teenagers and an eight-year-old, Yousef Abu Jaza, hit in the knee when soldiers shot at a group of children playing football in Khan Yunis."
'I can't imagine anyone who considers himself a human being can do this'
Chris McGreal, Monday July 28, 2003.
The Guardian

B’Tselem Exposes Israeli Army Lies - Its investigation confirms that the 11 year old victim was playing football with his friends when he was fatally shot,
14 November 2001
http://www.pna.gov.ps/subject_details2.asp?DocId=562

Killing of three Gaza youths puts ceasefire under strain - Teenagers playing football shot in border zone.
Chris McGreal in Rafah, Monday April 11, 2005. The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1456766,00.html

Israeli forces shoot Palestinian boy dead as he plays football
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem, 02 July 2004. The Independent, UK
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=537262

Loving football to death,
by I. Sulaiman
http://electronicintifada.net/features/articles/20010702isulaiman.html
* Several of the photos used in this feature were taken by I. Sulaiman, a freelance Palestinian journalist based in Gaza.

Poster of 11 year old Ali who was shot dead by an israeli army sniper
on 18 June 2001. He bled to death on the football field
where we was playing football with his friends when the sniper struck. [5]

IMPACT OF ISRAELI APARTHEID ON PALESTINIAN FOOTBALL

While Israeli sportsmen and women travel freely around the world, the Palestinian team has to surmount a labyrinth of checkpoints and border crossings just to play their "home" matches overseas.

With no decent pitches on which to train and a suspended national league, their success in getting to the preliminary qualifiers cannot be overstated.

Furthermore, Israeli authorities regularly prevent Palestinian players from attending international games. In September 2004, five players were prevented from travelling to the World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan. Unable to play in Palestine, the team travels to Doha, Qatar, for "home" games and trains in Ismailia, Egypt, more than 100 miles from the local Gaza players' homes.

In September 2004,
five players were
prevented from travelling to the
World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan

Israel's labyrinth of checkpoints makes just getting to and from training a journey fraught with danger. Players from the West Bank have to circumvent Israel's Apartheid Wall, take a bus to Amman (Jordan) and then fly to Cairo to meet up with their Gazan teammates.

Travelling within the Gaza Strip can take hours because of the checkpoints. For instance, it took Palestinian players 40 hours to get to Rafah from the Egyptian border - a distance of 100 metres - after last year's Uzbekistan match. Upon returning home from the Uzbekistan match in Doha, Striker Ziad Al Kourd discovered his house in the Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah had been destroyed. The Israeli army had demolished it whilst looking for smuggling tunnels. In his absence they have since deemed Al Kourd a security threat and banned him from travelling.

Despite these hurdles, their recent success has inspired tens of thousands of Palestinian children to hope that there can be a future beyond the latest Israeli curfew.

Israeli Checkpoints - After the Uzbekistan match,
it took the players
40 hours to get to Rafah
from the Egyptian border
- a distance of just 100 metres

Palestine's future generations and sporting talent is being wasted by illegal occupation, restrictions on movement and collective punishment. Since September 2000 Israeli forces have killed over 3,565 Palestinians - 22% of whom were children. In the past year alone Israeli soldiers have killed 176 Palestinian children. Many more have been left seriously injured by snipers and tank shells - unable to kick a football again.

Although youth under 17 make up more than 50% of the population of Palestine, there are few resources available to them under the occupation. Youth centres have been destroyed by the Israeli army. For instance, prior to the April 2002 reinvasion of West Bank towns and cities, the Old City of Nablus had 13 youth institutions. Now only 5 of these are operating.

Upon returning home from the Uzbekistan match,
Striker Ziad Al Kourd discovered his house
in the Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah
had been demolished by the Israeli army!

Despite the restrictions imposed on them, Palestinian children continue to defy Israeli curfews just to play soccer in the streets. Their steadfast resistance to occupation is mirrored in the determination of the Palestinian team to one day hear their national anthem played to tens of thousands of cheering supporters in a home ground in a Free Palestine.

Sources

http://www.ipsc.ie/soccerstatementMay.html

http://www.jerusalemites.org/jerusalem/cultural_dimensions/77.htm

SUGGESTED ACTION

[1]We are calling on all campaigners to write to Arsenal Football Club to protest their decision to support Israel. Remind them that Israel is a racist apartheid state which is consistently in breach of international law in its human rights abuses; that Israeli snipers routinely target Palestinian children playing football and that such a deal endangers Arsenal's anti-racist reputation: Invite them to instead support the sports boycott of Israel.

[2]Contact the Football Association's ‘Kick Racism out of Football' Campaign reminding them that Israel is a racist apartheid state which is consistently in breach of international law in its human rights abuses; that Israeli snipers routinely target Palestinian children playing football; and that such a deal endangers the FA's anti-racist reputation and the Kick it Out campaign itself. Ask the FA to use its influence to prevent the deal going ahead:

Sample letters are provided below, although we suggest it is more effective if you write your own letters using the points mentioned above.

Please email us at boycott@inminds.co.uk with the subject line "Arsenal campaign" just to let us know that you have complained, that way we can accurately gauge the response to this campaign. Also please forward us any replies that you receive - this is very important - thank you.

I am writing to express my deep concern about Arsenal FC's recent sponsorship deal to promote Israel as a tourist destination. Arsenal FC has hitherto enjoyed an excellent reputation for fighting racism and this deal will seriously put this reputation at risk.

Israel is a racist apartheid state built upon the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Arab population from Palestine. Anti-apartheid campaigners such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu have stated as much and called for a complete boycott of Israel similar to that used against apartheid South Africa.

Israel's apartheid policies include the segregation of West Bank roads by the military and the construction of a vast steel and concrete barrier through the West Bank and Jerusalem. Dubbed the "apartheid wall", because it forces communities apart and grabs land, it was held to be in violation of international law by the International Court of Justice. Israel's plan to carve up the West Bank, apportioning pieces of territory to the Palestinians is also comparable with South Africa's "bantustans" - the nominally independent homelands into which millions of black men and women were herded.

Israel's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinian Arabs who have no place in a "Jewish" state. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are given special rights which non-Jews do not have. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property and has waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

As regards football, Israeli human rights groups have documented how Israeli soldiers routinely shoot Palestinian children playing football outside their refugee camps. Furthermore, Israeli authorities regularly prevent Palestinian players from attending international games. In September 2004, five players were prevented from traveling to the World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan. Unable to play in Palestine, the team travels to Doha, Qatar, for "home" games and trains in Ismailia, Egypt, more than 100 miles from the local Gaza players' homes.

For Arsenal to sign a deal to promote such apartheid state as Israel is to go against the very principles of the 'Let's Kick Racism out of Football' campaign. I urge you to pull out of this deal as only economic pressure, similar to that which toppled the apartheid South African regime, will end apartheid in Israel.

I am writing to express my deep concern about the recent sponsorship deal made between Arsenal FC and Israel to promote Israel as a tourist destination.

Israel is a racist apartheid state built upon the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Arab population from Palestine . Anti-apartheid campaigners such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu have stated as much and called for a complete boycott of Israel similar to that used against apartheid South Africa .

Israel 's apartheid policies include the segregation of West Bank roads by the military and the construction of a vast steel and concrete barrier through the West Bank and Jerusalem . Dubbed the "apartheid wall", because it forces communities apart and grabs land, it was held to be in violation of international law by the International Court of Justice. Israel 's plan to carve up the West Bank, apportioning pieces of territory to the Palestinians is also comparable with South Africa 's "bantustans" - the nominally independent homelands into which millions of black men and women were herded.

Israel 's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinian Arabs who have no place in a "Jewish" state. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are given special rights which non-Jews do not have. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property and has waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

As regards football, Israeli human rights groups have documented how Israeli soldiers routinely shoot Palestinian children playing football outside their refugee camps. Furthermore, Israeli authorities regularly prevent Palestinian players from attending international games. In September 2004, five players were prevented from traveling to the World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan . Unable to play in Palestine , the team travels to Doha , Qatar , for "home" games and trains in Ismailia , Egypt , more than 100 miles from the local Gaza players' homes.

For Arsenal to sign a deal to promote such apartheid state as Israel is to go against the very principles of the ‘Let's Kick Racism out of Football' campaign. I urge you to use your influence over Arsenal FC to persuade them to pull out of this deal as only economic pressure, similar to that which toppled the apartheid South African regime, will end apartheid in Israel .

I look forward to hearing from you soon about this urgent matter.

Yours Sincerely,

Your Sign

Your Name & Address

THE EMIRATES CONNECTION

It was revealed that before approaching Arsenal FC, Israel had tryed to entice two other European football clubs to help sell apartheid Israel as a holiday resort. Both clubs pulled out of the deal.[6]

JUVENTUS DUMPS ISRAEL

The tourism ministry has previously looked at tying up deals with Italian club Juventus, but this fell through after another sponsor, Libyan oil company Tamoil, opposed the move.[7] Tamoils agreement with Juventus involved an initial sum of €110 million to cover the period between July 2005 and July 2010, in exchange for which the Libyan-based oil company Tamoil will receive exclusive shirt sponsorship rights.for 5 years. A further €130 million has been agreed to cover the following 5 years, making the deal worth a total of €240 million.[8] Although the agreement did not bar Juventus from seeking other sponsors Tamoils 10 year shirt sponsorship deal gave it sufficient clout to convince Juventus to dump Israel.

AC MILAN DUMPS ISRAEL

Next the Israeli Tourism Ministry approached the Italian Serie A club AC Milan which initially agreed. However before launch they also dumped Israel. Israels Tourism Ministry was furious and asked israeli prime minister Sharon to intervene:

AC-Milan Online reported:

Sharon asked to help win AC Milan sponsorship

Israel's tourism ministry has appealed to prime minister Ariel Sharon to take advantage of his personal friendship with his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi to persuade Italian football club AC Milan to reverse its decision not to act as a testimonial for Israel. Owned by Berlusconi, Milan, one of the world's most famous teams, has decided not to accept 550,000 euros from the Israeli tourism ministry in exchange for promoting travel by Italian tourists to Israel.[9]

Despite such pressure AC-Milan refused to help Israel.

ARSENAL SAYS YES, BUT WHY?

After these failed attempts, Uzi Gafni (a director of the Israeli Tourism Ministry) decided to approach clubs in England:

"We didn't go near Chelsea because of its anti-Semitic image prior to the Abramovich era, Manchester United arouses antagonism, and Tottenham, despite its Jewish connection, isn't big enough. Luckily, Arsenal got back to me, just two days after I made the initial contact."[6]

Luxurious Emirates Stadium with a capacity to host 60,000 people, due to open this summer,
will become the centre to promote apartheid Israel- The propaganda ads
will be
beamed
to 192 countries. Even its banquet halls will be handed over to Israel for its functions.

At a press conference with Israeli Tourism Minister Avraham Hirchson the Arsenal managing director Keith Edelman said the campaign was given the blessing of Emirates Airlines. "Before we strike any deal, we discuss it with our partners. This was the situation here as well,".[3] Edelman added that representatives of United Arab Emirate's-based Emirates Airways, one of the club's main sponsors, were kept abreast of developments throughout negotiations with Israel and have voiced no objections to the deal.[11]

Initially Emirates VP for corporate communications Mike Simon told Gulf News that the Israeli deal will have no impact on Emirates investment in Arsenal[10]. But with public pressure already mounting on Emirates airline their spokesman has now announced that the Arsenal-Israel tie-up is “unfortunate and we are obviously not happy. We will do our best to persuade Arsenal to not renew its deal with Israel.”[12]. Clearly this is a totally unacceptable response to their initial collusion in securing Israel the sponsorship deal. But before we suggest any action against Emirates we will give them an opportunity to respond - please watch this space.

Forget 60,000 spectators, this Palestinian boy has no where to play football-
His home at Mas'ha is completely surrounded by the apartheid wall